Names

Names

You should always choose names that suggest the meanings of the things being named. If the purpose of a method is to draw a rectangle, then a good name for that method is drawRect. If there is a variable of type filledRect that is used as the stem of a stop sign, then a good name would be stem or stemRect.

• Names that have nothing to do with the program are very bad names! For example, def frodo: Graphic2D, just makes your program harder to read.
• Names that are not specific or descriptive enough are generally bad names. Ex. line: Line or l: Line are not as good as foulLine: Line if the line represents a foul line.
• Try not to name objects sequentially. You should only do this when the objects are related in some way that is not otherwise expressible. Ex., box1, box2, and box3 are not as good as darksBasket, whitesBasket, and colorsBasket if the rectangles represent laundry baskets for clothes of specific colors.

Following Grace convention, types begin with capital letters, while classes, methods, defs, vars, and parameters all begin with lowercase letters, while uppercase is used to start new words in multi-word names. You are expected to follow these naming conventions to make your program readable.

Prefer local variables and defs inside methods unless the results must be saved for use in another method request.

Names